P5170 Student Screening, Preassessment, and Intervention Activities

The school district operates programs to screen students in accordance with State statutes. Preassessment and intervention activities are implemented for the purpose of providing support to assist teachers in dealing effectively with students who exhibit learning and/or behavior differences. No student in regular education is identified as exceptional until resources available within regular education have been deployed and found to be inappropriate or ineffective in meeting the student’s needs. Screening, preassessment, and intervention activities involve the use of several disciplines and resources, including age appropriate developmental instruments or procedures, and encompassing the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains. 

Administrative Implemental Procedures: 

1. Definitions 
   1. Screening. Considers all students in a given population. Population may be one grade, one classroom, one age group, one school, or multiples of these groups. Includes mandatory health screening; the use of any age appropriate instrument to identify possible physical, intellectual, social or emotional, language or perceptual deviations. Screening is data gathering. 
   2. Preassessment. This is the first phase in determining whether the educational needs of a student can be met within regular education. It involves the matter of review of the student’s family background and educational record. It also involves the provision of support and assistance in regular education so that learning experiences appropriate to the student’s current status are presented. Preassessment can also involve the next logical step to screening activity. Preassessment includes the gathering of more data and the comprehensive review of the data gathered. 
   3. Intervention. Intervention means a planned activity, strategy, technique, approach, or other plan of action that is set into place in an attempt to ameliorate the learning difficulties found in the screening and preassessment phases. The goal is to change the educational performance of the student in a positive direction. Intervention is usually for a rather specific period of time. The nature of the actions that make up the intervention is usually quite specific and a time is set for the purpose of reviewing the efficacy of the intervention action. Often there are other interventions developed when the first one proves to be ineffective. 
2. Screening sequences include: 
   1. Count Your Kid In, ages 0 to 5 years 
   2. Entering kindergartners: Wichita Uniform Kindergarten Screening Instrument. 
   3. Fifth grade: Designated state or district assessments. 
   4. Eighth Grade: Designated state or district assessments. 
   5. Health related: dental, vision, hearing, scoliosis, neurodevelopmental, weight, height, etc. Vision and hearing done biannually. 
3. Preassessment initiatives involve: 
   1. Utilization of screening data to formulate educational judgments 
   2. Additional data gathering 
   3. Systematic review of educational progress, sequences, gaps in learning, etc., by the Preassessment Intervention Team or a core team drawn from the Child Study Team. 
   4. The formulation of intervention plans. 
4. Intervention strategies—the implementation of the plans as set forth by the Preassessment Intervention Team. 
   1. Strategies designed to deal with environmental considerations: distractibility, space, lighting, structure of the school day, naps, breakfast, health related concerns 
   2. Strategies designed to deal with behavior management concerns: understanding rules and consequences, positive reinforcement, coordination of school and family expectations in behavior and behavior modification, extinction, time out, etc. 
   3. Strategies designed to deal with academic concerns: harder or easier course levels, altering of assignments, altering the instructional input, guided and independent practice, monitoring, utilization of various teaching modes, matching of teacher with student learning styles, coaching, academic tutoring, etc. 
   4. Interventions within regular education hold the promise of addressing the problem at an earlier level and of solving the educational concern in a more cost effective manner. 
5. Documentation of the interventions 
   1. Description of what was attempted, degree of success, attained 
   2. Feedback to Preassessment Intervention Team 
   3. Written documentation for future teachers and for further educational considerations 
6. Relationship to special education justification and comprehensive evaluation activities 
   1. Student should meet two criteria for special education placement: eligibility and need. 
   2. Documentation from preassessment and intervention activities forms a basis for making a judgment that a comprehensive evaluation is in order. 
   3. The placement documents have a space to summarize the interventions that were tried. A series of interventions that were tried and were not successful in meeting the needs of the student are a necessary forerunner to a comprehensive evaluation. 

Administrative Responsibility: Student Support Services  

Latest Revision Date: September 1997 

Previous Revision Date: July 1994 P5170 

Updated administratively for alignment purposes: December 2020 

Download P5170